2008 Woodie Awards
Illini Media
WPGU
buzz
Illio
TechnographISS schedule conflict jeopardizes 8 votes
Students choose either Engineering banquet or voting
By Michael Logli
Posted: 4/9/07 Section: News
The Illinois Student Senate internal elections allow representatives from each college to choose their future leaders. But with those in the College of Engineering possibly not attending, election results could be biased, said Jason Webber, ISS external vice-president.
The College of Engineering Student and Faculty Awards Banquet takes place at the same time as the internal elections. If those invited attend the banquet instead of elections, the entire college may not be represented.
"(Losing) eight votes out of 53 would be disenfranchising to the second largest college," said Student Senator John Yu, senior in Engineering and coordinator of the banquet.
This ceremony honors the top 100 engineering students and the top 10 percent of all engineering faculty for excellence in the college. Seven College of Engineering students and one engineer from the college of LAS were invited to attend the ceremony, and their absence from the election can have negative results on the outcome, Webber said.
"I think the biggest impact would be on the vice-president internal elections, which has four candidates," Webber said.
Of this race's four candidates, junior senator Patrick Sykes is also in the College of Engineering and the Engineering Council President.
Webber said that if senators vote by college, it would greatly decrease Sykes' chances of getting elected because others from Engineering would not be there to vote for him.
"I'm skipping the awards banquet, but it would have been nice to go," Sykes said.
While the awards banquet and internal elections have historically taken place on the same day, they usually occur at different times, Webber said. Also, the awards banquet is usually scheduled three months ahead of time, and the time of the internal elections was released a week and a half ago, Yu said. After realizing the conflict Webber and Yu worked together to try and change the time of the internal elections.
"There's really no way to change the date," Webber said. "Especially with the big push for finals at the end."
They sent out e-mails to try to find out the number of conflicts. However, some responses did not come back fast enough to appeal to the Student Elections Commission, the independent group that runs the elections, Webber said.
The banquet itself is not mandatory, with the exception of Yu who is master of ceremonies. Yu encourages all College of Engineering students to attend the elections, but finds the end resolution a disappointment.
"I tried," Webber said. "But it's very unfortunate."
The College of Engineering Student and Faculty Awards Banquet takes place at the same time as the internal elections. If those invited attend the banquet instead of elections, the entire college may not be represented.
"(Losing) eight votes out of 53 would be disenfranchising to the second largest college," said Student Senator John Yu, senior in Engineering and coordinator of the banquet.
This ceremony honors the top 100 engineering students and the top 10 percent of all engineering faculty for excellence in the college. Seven College of Engineering students and one engineer from the college of LAS were invited to attend the ceremony, and their absence from the election can have negative results on the outcome, Webber said.
"I think the biggest impact would be on the vice-president internal elections, which has four candidates," Webber said.
Of this race's four candidates, junior senator Patrick Sykes is also in the College of Engineering and the Engineering Council President.
Webber said that if senators vote by college, it would greatly decrease Sykes' chances of getting elected because others from Engineering would not be there to vote for him.
"I'm skipping the awards banquet, but it would have been nice to go," Sykes said.
While the awards banquet and internal elections have historically taken place on the same day, they usually occur at different times, Webber said. Also, the awards banquet is usually scheduled three months ahead of time, and the time of the internal elections was released a week and a half ago, Yu said. After realizing the conflict Webber and Yu worked together to try and change the time of the internal elections.
"There's really no way to change the date," Webber said. "Especially with the big push for finals at the end."
They sent out e-mails to try to find out the number of conflicts. However, some responses did not come back fast enough to appeal to the Student Elections Commission, the independent group that runs the elections, Webber said.
The banquet itself is not mandatory, with the exception of Yu who is master of ceremonies. Yu encourages all College of Engineering students to attend the elections, but finds the end resolution a disappointment.
"I tried," Webber said. "But it's very unfortunate."
The Daily Illini encourages on-topic discussion through article commenting on its articles and blogs. It is our policy not to delete any comments based upon political or ideological point of view. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are abusive, off-topic or use excessive foul language.
The posting of copyrighted material, including any and all content for which you are not the author, is illegal under Federal intellectual property laws. Such activity will not be tolerated. Comments containing copyrighted material will be removed, and continued violation of copyright law is grounds for being banned completely from commenting on DailyIllini.com.
If you feel any post meets these conditions or merits review, please e-mail our editors at meonline@dailyillini.com.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
Justin
posted 4/09/07 @ 12:15 AM CST
Note to DI: John Yu is NOT the Engineering Council President. He is the outgoing Awards Chair for Engineering Council. Patrick Sykes is the current (incoming) President of Engineering Council. (Continued…)
Patrick Sykes
posted 4/09/07 @ 12:26 AM CST
Thank you Justin. In case there was any confusion, the relevant website to check here would have been
http://ec.uiuc.edu/index.cfm?page=execboard
I also decided late today to pull out of the Vice-President race, because I wanted to focus my efforts in the coming year on my goals for engineering council. (Continued…)
Ariel
posted 4/09/07 @ 12:31 AM CST
I would like to know why the DI did not talk to the SEC, the ISS President or VP Internal on this issue as to get both sides of the issue?
Post a Comment